The indictment of former FBI Director James Comey for an Instagram post apparently calling for President Donald Trump's ouster from office in a code laid out in seashells was decried as running afoul of the First Amendment even by some Trump supporters and Comey critics. Around the same time, the White House embarked on a campaign to get comedian and late night host Jimmy Kimmel fired by ABC over a joke about first lady Melania Trump — and the Federal Communications Commission appeared to back this effort with a threat to ABC-owned station licenses.

Trump supporters have hailed him as a defender of free speech against the "politically correct" or "woke" left wing speech police. Now, it looks like the Trump administration has declared war on speech it finds offensive.

The charges against Comey are based on an image interpreted by the Trump Justice Department as incitement to murder: the numbers "86 47." (Comey made the post a year ago and........

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